Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden

The Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden occupies a stone building that dates back to 1799. It began its life not as a hotel, but as a carriage house and stable for a sprawling twenty-three-acre country estate. The land itself was originally owned by Colonel William Stephens Smith and his wife, Abigail Adams Smith, who was the daughter of the second United States President, John Adams. They had intended to build a grand mansion on the property, but financial troubles caused them to abandon the project. The partially finished estate gained a local reputation for being an architectural failure, eventually earning the nickname Smith's Folly.